


Bracket Turn

by Just_Another_Day



Series: Thrown for a Loop [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Skating, Drama, Estrangement, Happy Ending, M/M, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 22:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16880373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: After what had happened the last time they'd seen each other, Ancel had hardly expected Berenger to turn up in the stands of his practice rink, watching him unblinkingly.





	Bracket Turn

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a prequel to my figure skater AU [Thrown for a Loop](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16747153). You're probably better off reading that one first, if you intend to read it at all. But be aware that Ancel/Berenger isn't at all the focus of that one (it's Laurent/Damen all the way). 
> 
> For those not familiar with figure skating, I wouldn't worry too much, just let any terminology you don't know slide past; if I don't explain it, it's not important to the plot and is mainly there for the flavour of the skating world (and as easter eggs for people in the know). Also, the title is the name of a figure skating element that, in basic non-jargon-ish terms, is a semi-complex change in direction. Make of that what you will. ;)

Inside, he was bordering on seething. But outwardly, Ancel completely ignored the new and unexpected presence in the rink. He at least seemed to keep his focus entirely on practising the twizzle transition out of a jump that he'd recently started trying out. He knew it already looked good. Ancel always looked good on the ice, or otherwise what was the point? But it could still use some improvement, and Ancel was well aware of it. Unfortunately, his current one-man audience would know it as well, being a former skater himself, and now more recently a coach. Ancel knew how well-trained his eye was.

Eventually, Ancel's awareness of that lurking presence grew too persistent to continue to ignore him. Ancel, ignoring what his actual coach would think of it, skated over to the edge of the ice until the toes of his skate boots were practically pressed against the boards. Ancel looked directly in front of him and upwards a little, where the man was seated about ten rows up into the stands, and quirked his eyebrow challengingly.

Berenger was rarely one to back down from a confrontation easily, for all that he might seem like he would be mild-mannered and pliable at first glance. He rose to his feet and slowly came down the stairs towards Ancel with the air of a titled lord from centuries past. Less charitably, Ancel thought he also kind of looked like a debutante descending towards the waiting crowd to be presented at her first official social gathering. Annoyingly, the mental picture of Berenger dressed all in debutante white, or even in a flowing dress, wasn't quite as off-putting as it should rightly have been. Ancel caught himself wishing that Berenger had worn less boring skating costumes back when he'd competed. Ancel could have kept himself busy for hours swiping through pictures and clips of Berenger skating, if only he hadn't always been clad in those nearly-identical brown monstrosities that it hurt Ancel to look at every time. He'd have done better to skate naked, really. _Much_ better.

He wondered if Berenger ever poured over the pictures of Ancel dressed in gauzy mesh and Swarovski crystals and even feathers that one time. Probably not. He probably thought of Ancel only in passing, these days. Even that might be only wishful thinking.

And yet for some reason, Berenger had appeared here all the same. He must have looked up where Ancel was training now, even, since Ancel had changed rinks. Ancel couldn't quite credit it. It was definitely strange behaviour, considering everything. 

After what had happened the last time they'd seen each other, Ancel had hardly expected Berenger to turn up in the stands of his practice rink, watching him unblinkingly.

"Why are you here?" Ancel asked suspiciously. "I thought you packed yourself off to the Land of Maple Syrup a year ago."

"I did," said Berenger. "Though I haven't had maple syrup even once since arriving there."

"Maybe you'd better run back there and remedy that now, then. There's certainly nothing that would be keeping you _here_ , considering there are no competitions or federation events this week."

"No."

Ancel narrowed his eyes. "You're here trying to recruit Laurent to skate for you again, aren't you? Well, you might have noticed that I'm not at the same rink as him anymore. We don't share a coach anymore. Or a country of representation, even. So you've come to the wrong place."

"None of that has escaped my notice. And I heard when you moved your representation to Belgium months ago. It was a good idea. You should at least make it to this Olympics that way. But you won't medal. Not with a twizzle like that."

Ancel had to fight not to react too visibly. He did clench his jaw, but simultaneously forced a smile, even if it was more a baring of teeth. "Whereas I would medal if I skated under you?"

"No," Berenger said. "Not at this Olympics. By 2022, absolutely. But with season having already technically started and your programs already set? Realistically, I couldn't turn you from a tenth-place skater into a gold medallist in half a season. I couldn't even start to help you change those techniques you really need to rework, because at this late stage that would just throw you off and be a surefire way to have you skidding across the ice on your face all season, including at the Olympics, while the world watches on. It takes more than five months to really see overall positive results from a coaching change, you know."

"Hey, there's nothing wrong with my techniques," Ancel claimed. He knew he sounded sullen, but couldn't care less. Berenger doubtless already thought that Ancel was spoiled anyway. 

_Tenth place_ , though? Seriously? Berenger was lucky Ancel wasn't keen on the idea of assault charges dogging his steps throughout an Olympic season, for Ancel kept his nails sharp, and he was incredibly tempted to put them to good use right then.

"Was that the excuse Laurent gave you when he turned you down last year?" Ancel asked. "That it was too close to Olympics? I think you'll find the real reason is that he's a stubborn ass who refuses to let it look like he's running away and just letting his uncle win." Unlike _some_ people who ran away with little warning, Ancel thought irritably. "That hasn't changed, you know. He still thinks he can get picked for the Olympic team here, despite everything. You're wasting your time if you've come here for him."

After a long pause, Berenger said meaningfully, "You haven't heard yet?" 

Ancel felt suddenly as though he'd missed something momentous. Had Laurent actually agreed to switch to Berenger after all? Ancel didn't know why the thought of that bothered him so much. Though perhaps it was fair enough considering how much Ancel _did_ hate being behind on the gossip.

"I'm sure I have heard," Ancel bluffed. "You're just being too cryptic for me to know for sure what you're talking about."

Berenger obviously didn't believe it for a second. Damn him. Ever since Ancel had first slipped in Berenger's presence, letting him get that first peek through Ancel's usual façade, Berenger hadn't been easily fooled by any of Ancel's usual tricks of deflection and lies.

"Laurent's out for the season," Berenger said. "As of three days ago, at the Lombardia Trophy."

Ancel blinked. That wasn't at all what he'd been expecting to hear. 

"Injured?" Ancel asked, even though it meant acknowledging that he hadn't already known about it after all.

"Assaulted. The guy busted his knee the morning before he was supposed to skate the free."

Fuck. With the way things had been going over the last few years, it probably shouldn't even have shocked Ancel. Nor should the attempt have surprised Laurent enough for it to have succeeded, as cautious as Ancel knew Laurent usually tended to be. But somehow it seemed to have done both. Apparently neither of them had really seen something like this coming, despite everything.

"That's why you're back in France?" Ancel asked. 

Of course it was. Berenger would have jumped on a flight the moment he'd heard that Auguste de Vere's little brother might be in trouble. Ancel doubted there was anyone in the world who would rush to his side had it been Ancel who had been the one who was attacked instead. Not even Laurent, who had until relatively recently been the closest thing to a friend Ancel had ever managed to have.

Not even Berenger.

"Partly for that," Berenger admitted. "I'm going to ask Laurent to come do his physio in Canada and to skate for me when he recovers." When, not if. Ancel found himself actually hoping that wasn't just optimism, before he caught himself and reminded himself that he shouldn't care either way except to wonder whether he'd have one less real opponent from here on out. Berenger continued, "I don't know if he'll agree, but I have to at least give him the option. It's better than just leaving him here, thinking he has no one on his side."

"You haven't asked him yet?"

That was surprising. Berenger wasn't usually the type to procrastinate about things he thought were important.

"I haven't had the chance yet. Laurent wasn't exactly my first stop on arrival."

It was true that despite not actually looking bad – when did he ever – now that Ancel was looking for them, there were certain tell-tale signs that Berenger might have just, within the last couple of hours, stepped off an intercontinental flight at Charles de Gaulle. Was that a suitcase propped in the aisle against the plastic seats where Berenger had been sitting before Ancel had summoned him down? Was it really possible that Berenger had come straight here without even stopping off at a hotel, let alone seeing Laurent first?

Ancel tried not to read too much into that. He wasn't the kind of fool who would let himself get caught out hoping a second time. Once had been more than enough.

"Not that I don't enjoy mixed messages," said Ancel, "but I prefer when I'm the one sending them. The last time I saw you, you didn't seem so interested in spending time with me."

Berenger frowned. "It wasn't about 'interest'. I think you know _that_ wasn't lacking."

"Do I?"

Ancel had certainly thought it was there at the time. But apparently he'd been wrong.

"You know why I left."

"I seem to remember you telling me that it wasn't working. So much so, apparently, that you had to put an ocean between us. What was that tripe you tried to sell me back then? That I'd do much better if I found someone else?"

Berenger had passed it off as meaning someone else to coach him, but Ancel had been more than capable of reading between the lines.

Not that Ancel _had_ 'found someone else'. But Berenger had no need to know that. If he did find out, he would probably conclude that Ancel had been mooning over him or something equally mortifying, when Ancel had just… been busy. With his skating. That was all.

"You agreed," Berenger said. "You said it would be easy enough. You didn't even seem bothered."

Well of course he hadn't. Ancel wasn't going to willingly come off like a jilted lovestruck fool for no reason. What would have been the point when it was so clear that Berenger had never been similarly invested himself?

And why should he have been, Ancel had supposed well after the fact when he'd calmed down enough to properly process it. One kiss; that was all that had actually passed between them, in the end. But at the time it had seemed like a foregone conclusion that Berenger would want to expand on that one experience as much as Ancel wanted to. Everyone who'd had a taste of Ancel's charms had always wanted more. It had always been Ancel who decided that the relationship – if his usual flings could even be called that – was no longer of sufficient benefit to him anymore. It was Ancel who always moved on, and never with any regrets. He'd never been the one to be rejected or left behind. Until Berenger.

"I really thought you'd do better if you weren't associated with me anymore," said Berenger. "It's not just your history with Laurent that got you more or less blacklisted by the Federation. The fact that you were being linked to me wasn't helping either. Everyone knows how hard I've campaigned on Laurent's behalf. They know my loyal was always with him. I'm basically a leper as far as the FFSG is concerned. And I thought… I know your skating is more important to you than anything else."

"Of course it is," said Ancel. "It's why I switched to Belgium this season. Which I would have done a year ago, if I'd thought I could find a decent coach who would take me on despite having to deal with all the drama and the pressure from France for coaches and sponsors to boycott me in retaliation for me leaving."

Ancel looked over at his current coach, who was busy with another skater, but who kept giving Ancel sporadic censuring looks. Ancel waved him off, barely restraining himself from aiming a very different gesture in his direction. Ancel hardly cared about what he thought about Ancel's current use of his ice time. He was a useless idiot anyway. He'd just happened to be the best (barely) of the few useless idiots who'd been even moderately willing to take Ancel on this season, since he was considered damaged goods.

Ancel had thought he'd had a much better option, at the end of the skating season before last a little over a year ago, when Berenger had been packing up to leave France. Ancel could still remember the humiliation of it. Of Ancel talking like it was just a matter of course that he would be going to Canada with Berenger and skating with Berenger as his new coach, only for Berenger to gently correct him.

"It didn't seem like a good idea at the time," Berenger said. "I thought I should stay away from you."

"And you've, what, changed your mind about that now that it's convenient to see me again?" Ancel asked.

"I flew for half a day to get here. You're hardly convenient."

"You came here for Laurent. I just happened to be here too."

"Considering what happened, I would have come here to make sure you were fine even if Laurent had flown to meet me in Canada instead of remaining here for now."

Whatever Ancel had been about to say slipped away from him, forgotten.

Berenger said, "I'm worried about you. If that man will send someone after Laurent like that, then how can we be sure you're not even more at risk? Laurent is at least his family. He has a reason to hold back. Or he should. You're nothing more than a nuisance."

"Lovely. Nice to know where I stand."

"You know what I meant."

"I should be none of his concern these days at all, though," Ancel pointed out. "I'm nothing to Laurent anymore, and even assuming he's still keeping an eye on you, I'm nothing to you either. I'm not even part of the Federation he has his claws in anymore. I'm not opposing him in any way. Why would he bother with me?"

"You're a loose end."

Ancel swallowed, because yes, from what little direct contact Ancel had experienced with the man, and what snatches of information he'd heard through Laurent and Berenger, that was probably exactly how the man would see it. Ancel knew things he shouldn't, and had connections to Laurent that still weren't _entirely_ broken, it seemed, or Ancel wouldn't have felt that rush of dread when Berenger had mentioned that Laurent was badly off enough to miss an Olympic season. Ancel didn't like caring, but it wasn't something so easily turned off, apparently.

"I assumed back then that there was likely to be more danger if you were with me than without," continued Berenger. "It didn't make sense to put two of his potential targets in one place, even if that place was a continent away. It would have made it too tempting for him, I thought."

"So you decided I was more of a detriment than a potential benefit to you?" asked Ancel.

The callous nature of it didn't quite sound like Berenger. It sounded more like Ancel himself, in fact. Ancel personally had always tended to choose the option that he logically thought would best benefit him. He shouldn't be irritated by someone else doing such a thing, but he was nonetheless, because he hadn't expected it of Berenger, of all people.

"I don't much care how damaging you are to me," Berenger said. "I've only ever been worried about the reverse. I just wanted what was best for you. And I didn't want to be the reason you got hurt."

Ancel wasn't about to say that Berenger had been exactly that, in the end. It would be admitting too much. Though Berenger himself mustn't mind confessing equally deep things about himself and his intentions. His heart seemed to be on his sleeve just then. Perhaps Ancel hadn't been wrong in his initial assumptions that Berenger had wanted more the last time they'd been together. Perhaps Berenger had just been an abysmally self-sacrificing fool about the whole thing. Ancel could hardly believe that he'd ever wanted to be with such a frustrating man. That he still wanted it, despite himself.

Berenger continued, "I couldn't say for sure that moving from one continent to another would eliminate the risks if I did something to upset him again, or solve the problems I was facing getting traction as a coach here. And I was changing country only a year after I'd turned coach in the first place, so I was losing most of those few skaters I'd managed to recruit and moving somewhere where I'd made no name for myself and had no real legacy to fall back on as a coach. I was as likely to fail as not. And If I was going down, I didn't want to take you down with me."

Ancel didn't appreciate having Berenger make decisions for him.

"Can you really say you would have wanted to come with me if being at my side might further hinder your chances of winning titles?"

"It wouldn't have, though," Ancel said. "You wouldn't let it."

It wasn't what he'd meant to say. He'd meant to say that Ancel wouldn't have cared. He'd thought to claim that Berenger meant more to him than Olympic gold, even though Ancel wasn't really sure whether or not that was true. Surely that would be what Berenger would want and need to hear. But there was a somewhat less savoury truth implied in what had actually come out of his mouth: that Ancel might have chosen skating over Berenger if it was necessary. That Ancel was simply willing to wager it wouldn't have come to that. That it still wouldn't.

But it shouldn't have to come to that. It seemed that there might be no reason left - other than stubbornness and denial - why Ancel shouldn't be able to have both.

Berenger didn't seem offended by the more qualified answer. Probably he was grateful to have the truth. Berenger had always put more stock in honesty than Ancel for as long as Ancel had known him. Which admittedly hadn't been that long, all things told, but it felt like half a lifetime.

It had felt like it could have been the other half too, given the chance.

Ancel wasn't getting anything out of his current coaching contract anyway.

"Things are different now. You're already finding success over in Canada," Ancel pointed out, and tried not to care that he was, in effect, confessing that he'd kept up with Berenger's career after he left. "And I'd bet you're making the kind of connections that might provide something of a buffer against anything he might do, along with the distance. And here I am, no longer tied to France in any way except that my current coach and skating club happen to be here. That's remedied easily enough, wouldn't you say? On a balance, I think I'm better off in Canada now, don't you?" 

"On a balance," Berenger repeated.

"Isn't that why you really came to see me?" Ancel asked. "Because you've changed your mind about coaching me? Why not just say so from the outset, then? Am I to fall at your feet and beg you to take me on now that you've decided you might just lower yourself to doing so? Why should I? It's less than five months to the Olympics, and as you said, there isn't enough time for a new coach to make much of a difference before then. It's difficult to see the benefit."

"Are you going to make _me_ beg?" Berenger said.

"I should. It would be amusing, and probably deserved. But I'd settle for less. Favourable terms in our coaching contract, for example."

Berenger remained silent. Ancel took that as an invitation to make his demands known.

"I'm not paying you to coach me, for starters," Ancel said.

"That sounds like a very good deal for you. Not so much for me."

"You can decide how good a deal you're getting when I'm done presenting the terms," Ancel said. "I also have no intention of having to find some horrible budget accommodation in Canada. What do people even live in there? Log cabins?"

Sounding amused, Berenger said, "Not as a general rule."

"Well I hope _you_ don't live in some 'quaint' atrocity, at least, because I'll be living with you for the duration of my stay in Canada."

Berenger's expression didn't change much, but Ancel saw the slight uptick of the corners of his lips. "Is that right?"

"Yes. And I require foot massages every night after I skate, unless you fancy listening to me complain about my feet aching all night every night."

"Is that all?"

"Oh, I'm sure I'll come up with at least a few further conditions yet."

"Yes," Berenger said. He said it with such weight that Ancel was left with no doubts that it was an agreement to Ancel's proposal.

"I bet your lawyer would tell you not to agree to a contract without knowing every term of it," Ancel pointed out.

"I don't care. You can tell me the rest when we get to my hotel, if you like. Which should probably be soon, since your former coach is looking at me like he's about to kick me out."

 _Former_ coach. Well, Ancel supposed that was true enough.

"Only if your hotel is five-star," Ancel specified.

"Would I make you step foot in anything else?"

Which implied that Berenger had anticipated possibly having to cater to Ancel's expensive tastes when he'd booked the place. Ancel would consider complaining about the presumption some other time. 

The hotel thankfully wasn't too far away, and the check-in process was short enough that Ancel didn't even have time to grow bored and consider wandering off in search of entertainment.

Once they were in the room, and the porter had departed, leaving them alone, Berenger had asked, "So what are your additional conditions? New skates at my expense, perhaps? You'll _definitely_ never medal with your current ones."

"Well now that you mention it, yes. Absolutely. New skates," Ancel declared. "And only the best."

"Obviously. I have met you. I know you wouldn't settle for less. And I wouldn't want you to either. And is that all? You don't want anything else?"

"Nothing I care to explicitly include in a contract." Ancel let the word 'explicitly' roll in his mouth, almost a purr.

"Then I agree to all of your terms," Berenger said.

Ancel pushed Berenger back onto the enormous bed and straddled him. "Pleasure doing business with you," Ancel said just before he leaned down into a kiss.

*

Ancel smirked at the other skaters at Berenger's rink as he pulled his new, exquisitely-crafted pair of skates from their box. He'd been eying the custom designs all last season, and now his new rinkmates were eying them enviously as well. Of course they were. But they shouldn't bother. 

The skates suited Ancel better than they would any of _them_ , anyway.

After all, they were ridiculously expensive, and kind of a hassle to lay hands on. But worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Man, these skating boys move quickly once it looks like they're going to get what they want. XD
> 
> I also did write a shorter scene between Ancel and Laurent set before Ancel flew off ~~into the sunset~~ to Canada with Berenger, but it didn't really fit in the end. You can probably expect to see that as a separate ficlet at some point in the not too distant future.


End file.
